2000 Census

With less than four months remaining until Census Day (Apr. 1, 2000), significant uncertainties continue to surround the Census Bureau's efforts to boost participation in the census and to collect timely and accurate field data from nonrespondents. Obtaining adequate public participation is a huge challenge, one with implications for the size of the nonresponse follow-up workload. Data quality and scheduling could be affected if the nonresponse follow-up workload is greater than expected or the Bureau has difficulty in filling the number of enumerator positions that it estimates will be needed for this job. These uncertainties raise concerns that the 2000 Census may be less accurate than the 1990 Census. As a result, the Bureau needs to have contingency plans in place to mitigate the impact of a lower-than-expected response rate. Because so little time remains and senior Bureau managers will be devoting most of their attention to carrying out the census plans that are already in place, such contingency plans will be most useful if they focus on the critical challenges and trade-offs that the Bureau will face?such as the need to balance schedule pressures with the need to protect data quality?if its response rate goals are not met. Also, even though the Bureau has already taken steps to expand the census applicant pool, additional statutory measures could be needed, given the Bureau's history of staffing problems and the magnitude of the Bureau's staffing challenge for 2000.

GAO noted: (1) with less than 4 months remaining until Census Day, significant operational uncertainties continue to surround the Bureau's efforts to increase participation in the census and to collect timely and accurate field data from nonrespondents; (2) key to a successful census is the level of public participation, as measured by the questionnaire mail response rate; (3) however, the response rate has been declining since 1970, in part because of various demographic and attitudinal factors, such as more complex housing arrangements and public mistrust of government; (4) based on the 1998 dress rehearsal for the 2000 Census, the Bureau estimates a 61-percent mail response rate in 2000; (5) however, this goal may be optimistic because: (a) a key ingredient of the dress rehearsal mail response rate - a second "replacement" questionnaire - will not be used in 2000 because the Bureau is concerned that the questionnaire could confuse recipients, which could lead to duplicate responses, and (b) while the Bureau has instituted an extensive outreach and promotion effort to help it achieve its desired response rate, dress rehearsal results suggest the Bureau still has not resolved the long-standing challenge of motivating public participation in the census; (6) the Bureau's ability to complete its field operations on time without compromising data quality is another significant risk to a successful census; (7) past experience has shown that following up on nonresponding households is one of the most error-prone and costly of all census-taking activities, requiring the Bureau to fill about 860,000 positions and recruit up to 3.5 million people; (8) even if the Bureau achieves its 61-percent mail response rate objective, it will have a nonresponse follow-up workload of 46 million housing units; (9) to complete this workload in the 10-week time frame that the Bureau has allocated, it will need to close an average of 657,000 cases every day; (10) however, a lower-than-expected mail response rate, difficulties in recruiting a sufficient number of workers in a tight labor market, and a variety of other factors, could undermine the Bureau's efforts and result in higher costs and less accurate data; and (11) while the Bureau has established post-census coverage improvement procedures to improve the accuracy of the 2000 Census data, these procedures are similar to 1990 methods that had limited success.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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